Register Now

In order to be able to post messages on the German Shepherd Dog Forums forums, you must first register.
Please enter your desired user name, your email address and other required details in the form below.

User Name:

Password

Please enter a password for your user account. Note that passwords are case-sensitive.

Password:

Confirm Password:

Email Address

Please enter a valid email address for yourself.

Email Address:

OR

Log-in

User Name

Password

Remember Me?

Human Verification

In order to verify that you are a human and not a spam bot, please enter the answer into the following box below based on the instructions contained in the graphic.

Additional Options

Miscellaneous Options

Automatically parse links in text

Automatically embed media (requires automatic parsing of links in text to be on).

Automatically retrieve titles from external links

Topic Review (Newest First)

04-24-2014 10:33 AM

carmspack

greetings to you .

What is the age of the dog? Are there other issues such as overall discomfort being away from the home-base?
Has the dog been trained with clear commands and with consistent expectations? You did say you have let things slip so I am thinking you have been a bit on the permissive side. Maybe time for rules and discipline ?
Some of the insecurity and submissiveness could be cleared up with a better leadership role from yourself.

That's a start .

04-24-2014 09:30 AM

misslesleedavis1

Dont set him up in a situation were he could fail, positive tones reward him or her for even the smallest thing.
I was talking to a very experienced trainer once who told me that when he gets a puppy for the first few weeks the puppy can do no wrong at all, no corrections, just straight up praise. He had his dog with him the proof was in the pudding.

To begin with, you could try not putting him in situations where he is too close to other dogs so that he won't react. Find a comfortable distance and train him to focus on you, ignoring the dog. Use positive reinforcement - praise/treat for desired behavour. As you and he excel, you could reduce the distance so that he is closer to other dogs and keep him focused on you, ignoring the other dog.

I always think with a reactive/unstable dog it is good to set them up for more successes than failures to help improve their confidence.

I am a weak owner (working on it now..never realised before how much I let slip) and have an insecure submissive dog who is getting overwhelmed and therefore nervous aggressive out on walks (with other dogs whilst on lead) because he thinks he needs to step up.

I am looking into NILF and will begin with that but I am open to ANY help avaliable. Currently reading through this thread.